Into the Night
by tabbyuknowit
Summary: He had heard somewhere, once, probably in a movie, that there was a difference between crying and weeping. He felt that difference, then. When you weep, you weep with your whole body, your whole soul. And he wept.
1. Shock

**I really shouldn't be writing another when I already have another story out. Ah, well, I like this one.**

The last thing he remembered was a bright white light.

A bright white light, and pain.

Pain, racing through his head, his legs, his everything.

He didn't know what to make of it, what had happened. He couldn't remember a thing.

With some effort, he managed to pull his eyes open. For a moment, everything was black. Terrifyingly black, pitch black, the color of death. And he indeed thought that he was dead or dying, in those few horrible seconds before his vision cleared.

When his vision did clear, he thought that maybe this was a fate worse than death.

He was in a car. _His _car, to be exact. And all he could make out at first was the blood.

It was everywhere. Pouring off of himself, in cracks and crevices all over his once pretty car, and dripping in mounds off of-

_Ziva._

_ Oh, no, Ziva._

_ Not her. Anybody but her._

Horror washed through him so intensely that for a moment he didn't feel the pain.

She was pressed up against her seat belt, head lolling to the side. Dark red gore poured off of her, in so many places it hurt to look. Her beautiful brown hair was covered in it, and what little he could see of her face was covered in glass.

He could feel the glass embedded in his own face, looking at hers, and it made him sick. He retched violently against the now restraining seat belt, coughing and sputtering, reaching desperately for his buckle the whole time.

When he finally found it, he pressed it without thinking, and he fell with a moan on top of the now deflated airbag, suppressing a cry of pain. He hadn't realized, until that moment, that they were at an angle.

He could vaguely recall the signs of shock setting in over his whole body, but that didn't matter to him. All that mattered was her.

She was unconscious. _Dead or unconscious, _a pessimistic voice in the back of his head whispered, giving voice to what he had before not aloud himself to think.

He panicked then. She could be dead. What would he do if she was dead? Well, die, certainly.

He made his way over to her as quickly as he could, which wasn't fast at all, and reached two fingers up to her neck to try to find a pulse.

He didn't find much, and what he could make out was faint and weak, slowing down. Her blood circulation slowing to a near stop, his heart rate soaring, his life slowly ending with hers.

And there was nothing he could do.

He had heard somewhere, once, probably in a movie, that there was a difference between crying and weeping. He felt that difference, then. When you weep, you weep with your whole body, your whole soul.

And he wept.


	2. Sorrow

Tony wept into her hair for as long as his body was able. Which wasn't long. Even though he was better off than Ziva, he was in very bad shape.

Slowly, his body shut down. He felt it and he didn't care. What was the point, anyway, without her?

He closed his eyes to the sound of sirens.

He could occasionally hear something, underneath the heavy sheet of darkness. Sirens, at first, the yells of paramedics trying to save their lives, and once, a slow jagged heart beat. Not much more.

Eventually, unconsciousness overtook him completely, and he fell into it's embrace.

He woke slowly, and unwillingly, but he woke all the same.

It was kinda cold, he thought, and lumpy. Very uncomfortable. There was a strange beeping coming from the corner, and all at once, he remembered.

He sat up in his bed gasping, quickly, too fast. His heart was racing on the monitor, he could hear it, and he had sat up too fast, way too fast, and his head was spinning and someone was pinning him down...

This must be his own personal piece of hell.

They had sedated him a little too heavily, but under the circumstances, they thought he could use a couple more days of unconsciousness.

He was groggier this time around, and stiff. He had laid in one position for a pretty long time, he could feel that. But that wasn't the only thing he felt.

Pain radiated throughout his whole body, everywhere. They hadn't given him nearly enough painkillers for his taste.

He opened his eyes slowly, painstakingly, blinking against the fluorescent lights.

"Tony? Oh my gosh, Tony?!"

Abby's panicked voice managed to reach him, but there was only one thing that mattered.

"Zi-Ziva?" he rasped. "Where's...Zi?"

Her face pinched, and her eyes teared up.

No.

No. There was no way.

His pupils dilated, his body shook, his breathing turned to hyperventilation. The heart monitor beside him sped dramatically. But he didn't move. He couldn't.

He could faintly hear Abby's concerned, and then panicked voice, speaking to him, and then almost yelling. But it was like he had cotton in his ears.

"She's not dead, Tony!" she yelled.

It was the only thing that could reach him.

"Wha-what? What do you mean? Abs, where is Ziva?!" He was listening now, but the heart monitor was still racing, and he was shaking out of his skin.

She sighed, and silent tears poured down her face. "She's...not doing so well."

He looked at her desperately, telling her with his eyes that this wasn't enough. She didn't speak up, though.

"How long have we been in here? Where am I? _Where's Ziva?_"

The tears kept coming, but she spoke. "Norfolk. You're in Norfolk, Tony. You and Ziva were in an accident, three days ago."

"Abs! Is Ziva okay?" His eyes were wild things, spinning in pools of sorrow.

She shook her head. "No, not really. Goodness, I don't know. I just don't know."

She buried her face in her hands, and Tony almost lost it.

"Abby, go get Gibbs."

She nodded her head and walked away quickly, the weight of his desperation and her own sorrow tying her tongue.

Tony was about to go crazy when Gibbs walked in.

"Gibbs, Gibbs-" he was cut off when he moved too abruptly and a cry of pain slipped past his lips.

"Dinozzo, you gotta calm down." Gibbs walked to his bed and sat in the chair beside it, sighing and staring at Tony worriedly.

Tony could've sworn he'd aged 10 years in three days. He looked so worn.

"Ziva?" That was all he managed to get out. He knew that, unlike Abby, Gibbs would hold nothing back.

"You two were found, in your car, flipped most of the way off a hill. You ran into a tree head on, Tony. Ziva had most of the impact on her side. When we found you guys, she was very nearly dead and you were in shock."

"What's wrong with us? Is Ziva gonna be okay?"

"Well, you'll be fine, Dinozzo. A lot of glass, a pretty serious case of whiplash, a concussion. You broke a few of your ribs and your leg. You got real lucky. But, Ziva, she's...she's in pretty bad shape."

"How bad is it, Gibbs? Somebody's gotta tell me. I'm gonna go crazy."

He sighed, and for a moment, his poker face failed him. "Her heart stopped, twice. She had some pretty serious internal bleeding, broken bones all over her body, glass embedded everywhere. They won't know how bad things really are until she wakes up. But that's the problem; they don't know if she's going to."

"What do you mean?" his eyes were pleading.

"They've had her very heavily medicated for the past few days, but they've started to lay it off. If they keep her doped up, she won't wake up at all, but if they don't, they have no idea how much pain she'll be in. They said she could just slip off quietly, or she could wake up and not be the same. Either way, she's a broken record; you both are."

A broken record. Yes, they were broken. Tony in his heart, and Ziva in her body.

Why they spun despite the skips and the scratches was beyond him.

** Thanks to everyone who favorited or followed or reviewed. You are loved.**

** Also,**

** Disclaimer: I want to own NCIS, but I don't. Lucky you.**


	3. Irony

**Hey ya'll. So, um, it's been a very long time. Hope this makes up for it. Feedback appreciated. :)**

Tony insisted on seeing her.

Despite the pain Gibbs knew this would cause him, physically and emotionally, he agreed.

Tony, with help from two nurses and a very annoyed Gibbs, managed to maneuver himself into a wheelchair. His head was spinning. When he threw up into his lap, the nurse sighed, but cleaned him up quickly. She handed the wheelchair over to Gibbs with a resigned smile and a nod.

"You alright, DiNozzo?"

He laughed, but it was cut off abruptly by a violent round of coughing. "Yeah, Boss. Sure."

The distance from whatever room he was in to Ziva's room in the ICU seemed to take hours rather than than the two or three minutes it probably took in reality. He was so anxious to see her, and yet part of him was absolutely terrified. What would he find? Certainly not the bright Mossad ninja he was used to. Would she be a living corpse, lying on that hospital bed? Would she ever be radiant and full of life again? He had to believe she would be. The only other answer was one he could not, _would not, _accept_._

When he saw her, his insides twisted, and he restrained the violent urge to throw up again.

The tubes and wires and nameless things coming out of her body were the first things he noticed. They looked like they had grown there overnight, like Ziva was the seed of some life-sucking tree that had stolen the natural radiance she exuded. That he could almost handle. That he had expected.

What he hadn't expected was her face.

It was nearly unrecognizable, swollen and cut up as it was. And even though he knew that underneath those superficial scars were wounds that went much deeper, this seemed like a personal offense. An attack on who she was, or who she had been. And that he could not handle.

He felt himself slipping, felt the tears that rolled down his face, felt it and did not care. It didn't matter if he lost himself now, did it? Not if she was gone.

The only thing he found that he could hold onto was her hair. An odd lifeline to grasp, he knew. But it was the only thing about her that seemed virtually unchanged. Still dark, wild, and curly, still unruly, just as it had always been. Lately, she had been trying to tame it in a few different ways, but now it was in it's natural state, completely unmanageable and utterly beautiful. It formed a sort of halo around her mangled face, the only thing about her that seemed as full of life as she used to be.

And through his tears and through his panic he held on to that small piece of hope, that small thing that hadn't changed. He would keep going until he knew for sure that she was gone, for her. He wouldn't fall apart until she wasn't here to hold on to.

Vaguely he recognized that he was in motion, but it wasn't enough to pull him from the pain of her almost-loss. He felt himself being pulled from the wheelchair and onto the uncomfortable hospital mattress, felt the needle slide into his arm, and then felt the panic not change or lessen but become muted somehow. Unconsciousness began to make itself known and he let it overcome his body. Sleep seemed like the best reprieve he could think of right now.

But sleep wasn't a reprieve at all. With sleep came nightmares. Her mangled face, her broken body, the blood. All the sedative did was make him unable to wake up from them. No, there was no reprieve.

When he did wake up, he woke up not calm but oddly resigned. His fate now seemed inevitable. She would either wake up, or she wouldn't. She would be the same person, or she wouldn't. There was nothing he could do but be with her and wait.

They were hesitant to let him see her again. The first time hadn't been a pretty sight. Though he remembered none of it but his tangled, confused thoughts and the image of her broken body, he was told by Gibbs that he had, in essence, lost all reason. Apparently, after a failed attempt to get out of his chair and climb into her hospital bed, he had gone into hysterics and couldn't be consoled. They had no other choice but to knock him out again. Tony wondered why he remembered none of this, but decided not to let it weigh too heavily on his mind. He didn't have enough space in his head to worry about anything else.

When he asked to see her again, the response was a resounding _no _from everyone but Gibbs. McGee had made an appearance while Tony was sleeping, and so had Abby and Ducky. They all agreed. Tony was in no shape to get so worked up again.

But the opinion that mattered most was Gibbs', and he disagreed.

"Let him see her," he sighed heavily, looking at them all with weariness and resignation in his eyes. "He can handle it."

So they carted him off to see Ziva.

He knew what to expect this time, but it still knocked the breath out of him. He wondered if he would lose it again, but he reigned it in. He couldn't be with her if he continued to lose it like this.

He unsteadily rolled himself to her bedside and wrapped her hand in his own. He had never noticed how small it was. Actually, he had never noticed how small _she _was. Shockingly so. She had such a strong presence that it wasn't something you noticed about her. He found that it both endeared him to her and made him uncomfortable. Ziva had never been someone in need of protection, but she looked so fragile now.

He pulled his eyes away from her slender fingers to look at Gibbs.

"How long was I out? Has she improved? Is anything different?"

Gibbs looked at Ziva, then back at Tony. "You were out for about twelve hours. They've weaned her off of all the meds they think she can handle coming off of, and the ball's in her court. She has brain activity, but they aren't sure how much damage was done. She'll either wake up, or she won't."

Gibbs looked down, and Tony fought the urge to cry again. He tried to think of something else.

"How did this even happen?"

"No one's for sure. You guys were alone out there and neither of you are in good enough shape to tell us. But it was snowing. Black ice, probably. You hit a tree. A freak accident."

A freak accident, Tony thought. How ironic. They risked their lives everyday at their jobs and what took them down? A freak car accident. It made him want to scream.

But that wouldn't help her now, so he settled in for a long night by her side, waiting and hoping.

**Thank you, to everyone who might happen to read this story. Every one of you is appreciated and loved. **


	4. Change

**Hey guys! So I'm going to try to stay more on top of things from now on. To everyone who reads, comments, favorites, or follows my story, your presence is noticed and greatly appreciated. Thank you, really.**

Sometimes Tony wondered if he was really, truly going crazy.

He watched his life continue and change as it always did. But it was different now, because hers didn't. Her life was stalled indefinitely. She hung on the precipice between life and death, and though his body healed, he often felt like he hung there with her.

He was discharged from the hospital within a week, and he was shocked to find he was reluctant to go. He had always hated hospitals, but so had Ziva. He hated to think she would be there alone.

There was very little he understood when the doctor's spoke about Ziva's condition, so he often had Ducky dumb things down for him.

"Just tell me how bad it is, Ducky. I don't understand half of what those doctors spout at me. I just want to know her chances."

Ducky pursed his lips, looked up at the hospital ceiling, and sighed. "Well, she hasn't opened her eyes or given any sort of verbal response, but she does seem to be giving some motor responses. That puts her at about a 5 on the Glasgow coma scale."

Tony stared at him dumbly. "Okay? And that means?"

Ducky once again turned his eyes heavenwards. Tony wondered what he was searching for, or if he was just avoiding Tony's desperate gaze.

"It means she has about a 34% chance of making a good recovery with a chance of disability."

A thirty-four percent chance of life. Which meant a sixty-six percent chance of death. Tony had never been a glass half full kind of person.

He took a month's leave, and he spent that time going back and forth from physical therapy, to the hospital, to the crappy diner down the street from the hospital. He seldom went home, and when he did, it was just to shower and sometimes sleep. Most of his nights he spent with her. He couldn't seem to pull himself away.

He spent many nights having long, one-sided conversations with her, willing her to listen. Sometimes he had hope that she could hear him, but mostly he was overcome by despair. There were days he believed his longing was strong enough to reach her, wherever she was, but it never did.

The month passed. To Tony's chagrin, he still wasn't cleared for field duty, but he was to report to work the next day anyway. He didn't know how to do this. He didn't want to see her empty desk. He didn't want to believe she was gone.

He guessed there was only one place he could go.

He hadn't been down these dusty stairs in quite some time, but they were so familiar to him that it felt like yesterday. The smell was the same as it always was; sawdust and bourbon, not necessarily in that order. The room was the same, the boat was the same, the man building the boat was the same. It made him feel just a little bit more sane. If he wasn't still on crutches, and if it wasn't so terribly difficult to get down the stairs, he thought that perhaps he could believe that nothing really had changed.

When Gibbs heard him banging loudly down the staircase, he sighed heavily, and walked over to stare at a very awkward looking Tony DiNozzo.

He had managed to get a couple steps down, but now he appeared to be stuck. One of his crutches had slipped down one step farther than the other, and he hung there precariously, trying to catch his balance.

"DiNozzo, I'd hate to see you survive a massive car accident just to die tryin' to get down my staircase."

Tony panted, smiling wearily at him. "A little help?"

Gibbs huffed in contempt, but he trudged up the stairs anyway, grabbing Tony by the shoulders and very nearly dragging him down the old, rickety looking stairs. They went slowly and unsteadily, with Tony placing each individual crutch on the step below the one he was on and following with the other crutch, but they managed to make it all the way down. Tony was out of breath and red-faced, but Gibbs just looked moderately irritated. _But then again, _Tony thought, _when did Gibbs not look moderately irritated?_

Tony took a few final steps to the stool in the corner of the room and plopped down with a loud, relieved sigh. Gibbs gazed at him for a second, then turned to his boat, sanding it with an intensity that was strange but normal to Tony.

They remained in silence for an immeasurable period of time. It was only broken when Tony struggled to reach the bourbon on the top shelf, and Gibbs ceased his work to get it for him.

"My last bottle," Gibbs mumbled under his breath while he poured some in a mason jar.

"Sorry, Boss," Tony replied with a jaded smirk, not looking sorry in the slightest.

Tony drank for a while, and then a little while longer, until the air seemed to become heavy with the weight of his thoughts. There was a small moment where some sort of silent communication passed between the two of them, and then Tony seemed to implode.

"Boss, I can't do this. I can't do _any _of this. I can't hobble around on these crutches for another two months. I can't listen to Abby worry. I can't go home. I can't go back to NCIS and do desk work. I can't go back to that hospital and watch… and watch her, just… _die. _I can't watch her die. I can't be with her when she's not there. _She's not there. _She's so lifeless… I can't… I can't…"

Tony's words became incoherent, and with his outpouring of words came those dreaded, long suppressed tears that had been brewing for quite some time.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was rarely unsure of the right course of action, but this seemed to be one of those times. Despite this, he listened his gut, just like always. He went to Tony and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, almost like an embrace, but instead he pulled up with force, nearly shocking Tony out of his stupor. He dragged him to the stairs until Tony caught on, calming down enough to work himself back up the steps with Gibbs' shoulder to lean on. When they made it, Gibbs led him to a hallway Tony had never been down before to a bed Tony had never seen, and when Gibbs practically dropped him onto the mattress, Tony had nothing left inside of him to protest. The lights went off, and Tony sat straight up on the bed, not having enough strength to move any farther.

"Tony, you _can_. What other option do you have? You can."

And he was gone.

When the pain subsided enough for Tony to think, he lied down on the bed and closed his eyes. And when he dreamt, he dreamt of her smile, and her hair, and her skin, and when he woke again, her face was the first thing on his mind. That wasn't unusual, but for the first time in a long time, it wasn't her bloody, mutilated face that he saw. Instead, he saw her face from their time in Paris. He had never before seen her so at peace. And for a moment, with that image in his mind, all of it was bearable. It was bearable because she was still here, no matter in what form.

So he would bear it.


End file.
